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The Making of the Oreo Advertorial

The Oreo Twist Lick Dunk advertorial was one of the ones I really enjoyed doing. I enlisted the help of a couple of my friends and coworkers to participate in the script that I had written. It was more of a doodle of sorts with stick figures of scenes I had envisioned and a rough idea of the text.

The first problem came even before the photo shoot – there were no Oreo cookies to be found in the entire Sibu town. I searched every single supermarket and shopping mall and it seemed like there was a town-wide shortage of Oreo!

I finally managed to find out the reason behind it – the manufacturer had recalled all the existing Oreo cookies and issued a memo to the retailers with instructions to take it off the shelves pending the arrival of the new packaging. The ship was supposed to have arrived but it got delayed at some port and no one had any idea of when it’ll actually come.

I thought about changing the script to a “Pepsi Test” writeup with people being blindfolded and asked to determine which cookie tastes better – Oreo or a local emulated version e.g. Cream-O but that would require Oreo biscuits as well. I was a bit concerned about the uncertainty surrounding the arrival of the shipment of Oreo to the Sibu market so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Thus, I called D, who was in KL at that time and staying at the Cititel hotel in Midvalley Megamall. She was kind enough to go to Jusco and get two packs of Oreo cookies and send it back via next-day courier service. D had to go in search of a box (so the Oreo wouldn’t get crushed) and hunt for a post office at the mall, so it’s thanks to her that I managed to meet the deadline. :)

In the meantime, I enlisted the help of Mary in my alternate scripts. I remember one of the alternate scripts was about not being able to find Oreo and wanted to title that post as “sixthseal.com and The Quest for the Holy Oreo“. The script went along the lines of being unable to get my hands on genuine Oreo cookies in Sibu and having to resort to having it sent from KL.

I even went to McDonald’s just to get a shot of their Oreo McFlurry, which was just about the only Oreo containing product in Sibu at that time.

This was the backup plan in case the package of Oreo didn’t arrive for reasons attributed to our fine postal service. ;)

Lady Luck was on my side though and the package containing Oreo from D arrived the very next day! Thus, I re-shot several of the scenes with the real Oreo. It took me two days to complete the Oreo shoot. One particular scene that stood out was the shoplifting scene.

I did the first one with Cream-O, a local biscuit “inspired” by Oreo, and I had serious reservations about submitting that since the client would obviously not want to see a competitor’s product in the photos. Cream-O looks almost like Oreo due to the blue packaging but I didn’t want to tarnish the advertorial by passing off another product as Oreo.

Well, the reason this particular scene was memorable was due to one of my friend’s interaction with the clerk at a local supermarket. He has a really funny and sarcastic response during the Sibu Oreo Shortage (TM). We were at Ta Kiong and they haven’t received their shipment of Oreo as well, but one of the clerks said that there had Oreo biscuits and walked with us down the aisle and pointed to…Julie Stereo.

This prompted my wise-cracking friend to launch into a funny tirade against the poor girl.

Friend: Stereo? We said OREO not STEREO.Clerk: Ya lah, Oreo. (points to Julie Stereo)Friend: That’s not Oreo! How can you compare Oreo to Stereo? Do you compare a Mercedes to a Kancil? We wanted the original Nabisco Kraft Oreo.Clerk: (speechless)

Anyway, we didn’t even know if the clerk understood English which was a bit of a mistake on our part. I walked in on Tuesday again to get some chocolates and the very same clerk called out to me and told me that my Oreo has arrived. She then proceeded to talk to a fellow clerk across the counter about getting “suan” (Hokkien for sarcastically teased) by my friend the other day.

In hindsight, it was really kinda funny. I apologized to her and told her we were only having a bit of fun, albeit at her expense. She was very nice about the entire thing though, so kudos to her for that. I got a DoubleStuf Oreo and the Peanut Butter and Chocolate Oreo to supplement my meager supply of Oreo from KL. I even got her to pose for a photo and we returned the next day to do a proper shot of the shoplifting scene with their ample supply of Oreo as the backdrop. :)

Deleted scenes:

Reason: Product placement overkill. The pose with the Oreo is too fake.

Reason: Same as above. I look more irritated than shocked at being apprehended by a security guard for shoplifting. I needed the comical horror expression at being caught in the act.

Bonus features:

I was delighted to find out that Mary was such a good model to work with. She has a wide repertoire of facial expressions. She can do sad, frustrated, angry, cute and happy when called to. She’s really a pleasure to work with and has been a great help to this project. Thanks Mary! :)

The funniest thing about this advertorial is that most of the shots were done using a single Oreo pack. I had to conserve my resources and had planned out which scenes needed the pack to be open and which ones didn’t. I was so stingy with the two packs of Oreo that consumption was strictly controlled even during the scenes except when absolutely necessary. Heh!

Kepala pening! See too many oreos in the blogsphere.
HB, just curious. You use Habisco Kraft Oreo in your post. It is actually Nabisco, not Habisco. (Habis co. sounds bad for a company’s name, heh!) Nabisco is actually one of the Kraft’s brand name, not the other way round. If you already know this, ignore this comment. ;)
Mary, I love your oh-so-creative face expressions. You look different in each of them. Please be my model next time with Mr. PHB. :P

We used to have this thing called jingles last time in school. Kinda enjoyed that very much. It was something more or less like making an advert ..
that’s cool dude. Advertising is cool ..
anyone’s hiring? count me in. I may nt be as good as Rob Cohen or george Lucas but you can bet on me .. ha ha ha

MI!: Heh! I felt a little bad about the entire episode actually. Went back to apologize and sweet talk a bit and she was fine with it. Cool person. :)
miumiu: It’s not as good as Oreo. I’ve had it before at the office.
nkwai: I have scripts for all the advertorials that I do so I know what I’m supposed to be doing at one particular time. I have a full time job so I need to plan my personal time at night well to get it done. :)
I like doing things like these too, it’s really a lot of fun to rally your friends and get a storyline going.
David: Haha! You’re not only getting your money back but you’ve got mail. ;)
suituapui: Thanks, buddy! :)
I like doing stuff like A&P. It lets my creativity rip. There will be a TMO post for every advertorial that I do – a behind the scenes thing, since I don’t use up all the photos for the advertorial itself.
BTW, I’m at Mukah with He Who Must Not Be Named (TM). ;)
fish fish: OMG! I didn’t know that, I got the two names confused. Thanks for the correction, I’ve already made the amendment in the post.
I’m most willing to be your model and I’ll ask Mary too. :)
cibol: I want to go into advertising too! KL would be a nice place to be based in for that field since the demand isn’t really there for Kuching, much less Sibu.
(=’.’=): Really! The ship got delayed at the port – there were NO OREO cookies at any store and believe me, I went to all of them from the small ones to the large retail supermarkets.
Okay, next time I do another project I ask for your help. :)
YingYang: …the wonders of advertising. ;)
Hey, that means I did two posts and should get paid twice. ;)

Very interesting post! Kinda like those behind the scene episodes we watch on tv haha! Damn, you are very creative and a very detailed, organized fella. Complete with doodles and scripts.. yeah, it is always fun doing things with bunch of friends. As one gets older, seldom get the chance to do this kind of thing hahahahaha! (mixing with the wrong crowd must be.. ROTFLMAO!)

Sorry Man, access to the Internet in a whole week! LOL Oreos…Hmm, I love the Double Stuffed myself, dipped in cold, frigid cold milk…. Hmmm…….
We are going to the Borneo Headhunters on Monday to check out times we can get our tattoo done…. you still heading down here or want me to take a vid of it and upload it to you?

after seeing this advert.myself cannot resiste the tempatation of oreo.did try oreo mcflurry in green tea which launch since last month, i think.But cann’t seen find the double stuf flavor over singapore ler. only double delight flavour, chocalate, normal one ler.ha~

bongkersz: Yeah, it’s meant to be like that. :)
Special features on a DVD box set. Except this is on a blog. Heh! I had planned this too – going to do a behind the scenes thing for every advertorial that I do.
I’m not very organized at things though. Haha! My room and office space is an entire mess.
goolooloo: Heh! You’re in very high demand as a model. :)
Skwermy: Hello there! I will be unable to head over to Kuching due to work commitments. I’ll love to see a video of the tattoo being done. :)
You have any designs in mind already?
David: Okay, will resend it again. Cheers! :)
eve: Yeah, had to take multiple shots of different facial expressions in order to get it done. :)
…and that’s effective advertising in action. ;)
jessy: I actually wish I had some right now. I haven’t had breakfast yet and I’m kinda hungry.
clementwpy: Haha! Me too, need sugar and calories. Hungry.
eugene: Oh, I haven’t seen the green tea oreo mcflurry yet. I can imagine it would taste nice. The double delight flavor is awesomeness too. I love the peanut butter and chocolate combo. You can make your own doublestuf Oreo – just take two cookies and twist it and put the sides with the cream back together. ;)
xin: Heh! That was one of the key scenes that I wanted to do. The original scripts is captioned “What would Jesus do (for an Oreo)” but I didn’t think that would go down well so I changed the text. :)
Cokelatrawkz: No lah. This is fully scripted out coz it’s an advertorial. My spontaneous action posts are the regular posts on sixthseal.com
Anyway, there are a lot of Oreos in Sibu now, the ship has arrived! :)